Blooded Butterfly Wings
by dosei no otohime
Summary: Asuka, insane and brutalized, is trying not to forget what little she has left of herself. Can she survive her captors with the last thought in her head? Or will that name continue to haunt her until her blood is spilled for the final time?
1. Live to Lose

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A child torn to nightmare in a rocking cradle

A child so frail and desperately unable

A thousand times a shadow in the corner which I stand

Under your gargantuan dreams, I feel unclean

To devour and tame my own bruised heart

Riddled and beaten with blooded butterfly wings 

****

Blooded Butterfly Wings

Part 1

Live to Lose

How long?

The wall smelled like old paint.

How long?

She could feel her nose touching the wall.

How long?

The wall smelled like mildew.

Longer than all the years in the world.

Infinity, and then the void beyond that.

She had forgotten her name. She answered only to the name they called.

"Hey Red-Trash!"

Red.

Like her hair.

Like the dead.

Like Rei's eyes as she stared ahead.

Occasionally she laughed. She laughed while they beat her. Then they beat her more.

She worried they would kill her.

Then she would have no one to talk with.

Even the mentally disturbed can have conversation.

But she'd forgotten.

She'd forgotten to brush her hair again.

She'd forgotten it every day she lacked a brush to comb through it.

She'd forgotten to take a bath.

She'd forgotten it every day since that night.

She'd forgotten to change her clothes.

They still had the bloodstains on them.

The wall smelled like mold.

She could remember his name, though. The boy she had left behind. The boy they had shot while they made her watch. The boy they called the Devil's Son in all their references to her past. If he were still alive today, would he remember her name?

If she were still alive again, could she remember it herself?

The wall smelled like dirt.

They told her the only way to repent was to be taken from the sin, and to kill the other sinners. They told her he could not be saved. They told her he was evil. They told her that he was killing the art of God. They told her that she could repent. They told her that she could live, and he could die.

The room smelled like blood.

She remembered his name.

She remember it, because it was the last word she said.

It screamed over and over in her head.

His name. Shinji.

His blood on her dress.

She wasn't allowed to open her eyes, but she must stay awake. They wouldn't let her sleep. She could not cry. She knew she couldn't. 

He pulled her hair.

"Hey Red-Trash! You hear me?"

__

Yes, David, I hear you.

"Answer me you little bitch!"

__

Oh, but David, don't you remember? I'm the little silent whore. The one you've taken to your bed many times. Oh, and we were caught. We, but it was blamed on me. I was the one beaten for the rape. I am the one who suffered ten-fold when you touched my breasts and opened my stained dress. I don't talk remember?

__

You don't remember my silence.

__

I don't remember my name.

His breath smelled of onions.

"Open your fucking eyes!"

She did. Oh, how she wished she hadn't. Behind her eyes, she could see a thousand worlds. She could see the table. She could see the dishes. She could see the shower and his bed on the floor where he slept. She could see the tiny headphones that were always in his ears. She could see the gleam off his hair.

But, here, she saw the horror. She saw the pain. The nightmare of this place could rupture a thousand hearts.

SHINJI!!

She continued to stare ahead in her fascination with the ugliness of this place.

SHINJI!! HELP ME!!

HELP ME PLEASE!!

"You are supposed to be reading, you little bitch!"

She felt the thick book hit her back. It pulled open the scabs and scars there. She felt the hot life flow down her shoulder blades and seep into the dress.

But it did not override his stains.

She touched the old blood once before she picked up the Bible.

SHINJI!!

She had struggled against their hands. She wanted to hold him, to make sure he knew before he left her alone. They didn't let her near him. Her whole form had been restrained, her arm broken in the process. They had never fixed it. It was slightly crooked, and it still hurt her.

The pain shot up her arm as she picked up the massive book. She did not wince. She had learned not to. She'd forgotten how to move her face. She'd forgotten how to speak.

She wished she'd forgotten his name as well. 

For what is the use of knowing an angel when trapped in the fingers of Hell?

Wow, the first parts are always fun. Review me. I'll give you a cookie if you do…


	2. Tears for The Devil

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Twisted and helpless in this brine

Whisper around the vines that climb

I wilt to you, my darling God

To this earth I saved once, I sob

Savior to us all, what have I done?

For I was born my daughter's son 

****

Blooded Butterfly Wings

Part 2

Tears for the Devil

She had once loved the moonlight. But it hadn't been laced and striped with iron shadows. The pale face in the sky, surrounded by a crown of blue.

Almost like Rei, if she would close her eyes sometimes. She hardly did that anymore. So, the moon had been like Rei, if her eyes had been pulled out of her head. 

She wondered if the moon looked at Rei, and thought the same thing, and watched her as she slept, watching the girl's form in its own image.

However, it was hours until darkness now.

It was barely afternoon.

David had taken the book from her again.

__

What will we do with the boy? 

She'd forgotten again.

She'd forgotten what she'd forgotten.

Against the walls, she didn't dare to care or cry. They would remind her if it was important enough. The days were lashing away at her spine with simple injustice. She could not collapse. They would pull her up and shove vitamins in her throat in order to keep her alive for the moment, though they didn't always feed her. The Bible was more important than painful stomachs empty, yet ready to heave when they beat her.

The rats.

The rats came with the moonlight.

They were her only salvation in Hell. 

They squeaked when she petted them, and she spoke to them, in her own way.

Instant.

Misato always ate instant food. 

She remembered. But who was Misato? She didn't know. They were all a single blur behind her eyes again. She remembered him, though. She knew her, though. Two faces struck her back into the past over and over again.

__

What will we do with the boy? 

She had been put in the closet again. 

She had been a naughty girl again. 

The coats smelled like mothballs here.

Where was Kaji?

She had hoped in the darkness that she would hear his familiar rustle along the wall, the swish of his tail and then his head poking out with his tiny black eyes staring at her from the hole. It may not have been the same mouse, but she called them all Kaji just the same.

Her hair was getting longer. It was itching along her back as it simply lay there on her head, matted, tangled and greasy. She wanted to cut it all off, or pull it all out. She remembered the way she could fling it over her shoulders, and it shone copper in the sun.

The sun.

A thing of the past.

The sun never told time anymore. It tried as hard as it could to break through the windows, but David had painted them black when she would stare at the outside world, at the birds building nests and flying away from here. Now, all the light could do was produce a grey where the paint hadn't been spread so thick.

David had recommended it to Miss Vicky. 

She hated Miss Vicky.

Miss Vicky was the one who had pulled the trigger. She was the one who was cold behind those eyes like all the spring meadows the girl hadn't seen in so very long. She had turned the world into a Hell, flames and all, for Miss Vicky had burned her hands to drive out the devil in her mouth. If that hadn't worked, she would've cut out her tongue. She said that in her ears, whispered it with all the cold of winters in Russia.

She still had her tongue, no matter how unused it remained in her mouth.

The closet was the best place. She didn't have to stay with David and his staring black eyes. He would rub his hand along his beard. That was an ominous sign when they both knew they would be alone for hours. She didn't even fight it anymore, for she knew he would just break her arm again.

Her hands supported her from falling on the floor and making a deadly noise.

She reached out to the floor, to find the same crack in the floor she had traced months and days before she had died. 

Her fingers found something foreign along the line.

Soft as down, and hard as well, cold with tracings of metal.

She picked it up, rubbing blind fingers over the thing.

She found the whiskers first, and the tail along with the soft furred body.

Then she traced the metal along, and found it had placed itself on the neck. A liquid that hadn't been chilled before was cold now, and it dribbled down from the mouth of the tiny creature.

Kaji.

Kaji was dead now. 

Oh, how she could not weep.

She fought the inhuman strength as it pulled on her throat. She pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth in order to suffocate the urge to do this. Doing this would kill her, but she had lost the only one that understood to some contraption that either David or Miss Vicky had left in the closet. She could not even cry silently, for they would see the distinct clean lines along her dirty face. She could not risk that, even to mourn her loss.

She closed her eyes and rested her face against her knees. She had memorized the splatter pattern by her heart. She touched it again.

She wondered if Kaji's eyes had widened as his had. She wondered if it was instant, and painless, unlike his had been. That night's abduction was something distant in her brain, only able to grasp with tiny hands. She didn't ever want to see it flash by again while she slept or while she washed her hands.

"_You_ _must go with us now."_

"What will I do with the boy?"

"All of the sinners are here." __

"What will I do with the boy?"

"The sinners are here."

"…the boy…"

"Where is the woman?"

"…unable…"  
"The girls will be useful to our purpose."

"What will I do with the boy?"

"Kill him, of course."

SHINJI!!

Her eyes snapped open at the movement outside the door. Someone was approaching.

It opened.

David's hulking form was there, like the hulking form of the Beast with crimson skin, with the soulless eyes and unmoving mouth.

Briefly, she realized she had become the doll with which she had once killed God's Art.

He looked at her, then glanced at the dead body of Kaji for a moment. A smile drifted over his lips when he saw the mouse was broken. His gaze returned to her.

"Time for Red-Trash to go to sleep," he said in a rough voice, and then he grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the closet.

As he threw the filthy mattress on the floor for her to sleep on, she looked at the windows.

She continued to stare as he began to untie the dress with his large, clumsy hands. She kept her eyes on them as her naked flesh met the air.

They were all black this time.

No hope could shine through at this hour.

Weee… that was fun as well. Thanks for all the nice reviews, and flame, that you guys gave me! 

More soon!


	3. Of All The Stars

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Mistaken fate took her in its arms

Wielding wildly its dark charms

Fake and plastic upon the embrace

Not same child body, not same child face 

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Blooded Butterfly Wings

Part 3

Of All The Stars

She opened her eyes as she lay on the floor. She was dressed again. She forgot whether he had done it, or had she in the wake of the act.

He left the light on.

It flickered as it almost sputtered out.

She saw the form lying across from her.

Rei.

She stared as the body breathed in and out, distorting the shadow of her back as she did. Rei wasn't facing her.

Kaji wasn't here anymore. 

She had no one.

She had nothing.

But, she had Rei.

Her tongue moved in the syllable of her name, but no sound came out. It moved as she began to nudge the other girl. One scarred finger pressed into her shoulder, pushing into the soft skin. She grabbed the shoulder, took it entirely in her hand, and began to shake her.

No reaction came from the other girl.

Her eyebrows furrowed. She shook harder. She pushed the body onto its belly. The arms folded beneath the chest and disappeared from view. She hit the back, a hollow sound echoing through the torso and ribs. 

Nothing.

Her mouth moved furiously in old and unused mimicry of words. The lips pounded together as she drew her fists and beat the spine, backbone distinct against starved ribs. She put her hands under and pushed, heaving her onto her side.

Red.

The red eyes.

They stared forward, looking like frozen blood in the dying light.

They didn't look at her.

Instead, they reacted as if she were a ghost.

The eyes were right, though.

They were all ghosts.

Still, she had to talk to someone.

Rei hadn't spoken since she hit her head. She hit it against the window. Rei had cracked her forehead against the painted glass, over and over again. She just stood there as she did, not even noticing the pain or the blood or the cracks in the window. Her face became streaked with the essence of her eyes. They didn't seem to mind her constant mutilation of herself, and they starved her silent tongue. 

Her fingers wrapped around the slender ivory throat and began to squeeze. This brought a reaction from her, as her cheeks began to pink up around the edges. Her body was gasping for the air. She squeezed harder.

__

Please, Rei. Talk to me. Wake up and talk to me.

The girl raised her arms and began to claw at the hands. She felt the scratches welt up as she kept her grip. They burned her scars, but she could not let up. She had to wake Rei.

__

Please hurry Rei.

The moon no longer existed in her face. It had begun to turn purple from the blood. The colored veil shaded over her face as she clawed at the hands that held her. 

"Asuka…"

Her eyes widened, the white almost swallowing the blue.

She dropped the girl onto the floor.

Her name.

Her name.

Her name wasn't Red-Trash. It was Asuka.

Asuka.

Asuka, Shinji and Rei.

Her hands shook as she looked at them. The dark purple scars lifted up on her palms in ridges and smooth lavender creases. The blood was brought up again, just like before, and did not crease her wrists this time, and they had not been self-inflicted.

Her name was Asuka.

Her knees wobbled.

She remembered her own scream, and the silence Rei had given her from the beginning. There had been no plan for escape, even as the wheels moved behind blooded eyes, there had been nothing to save them both. 

The skirt whooshed around her legs before settling on her calves as she fell to the mattress, her knees knocking on the cold floor. The greasy hair flew into her eyes, but she could still see her hands through the sunset-tinted locks.

She remembered.

Her stomach had cringed as she heard the door breaking. The metal tag with Misato's name had hit the floor with a distinct ring. The voices of anger and hate had poured through the apartment quickly, falling on her ears like swift spring rain. Shinji had been asleep.

Her chest had hurt with the fear as she tried to wake him.

They opened the door to the room, bursting through the darkness with the beams of flashlights blinding her and waking her friend. They grabbed her first, then Shinji.

Forever they held her tight, bruising her arms as she squirmed against the grip of a man she didn't know then. It was David. A woman in her forties with dimming brown hair paced the room as they discussed back and forth across the room and on the radio. They kept saying they couldn't find Misato. They couldn't find any of the NERV personnel. However, they had found the pilots of the Evangelions, the Children, the sinners. 

According to the woman she now knew as Miss Vicky, the girls could be saved and could repent against the dark will of mankind. They would be made into things worthy of God. The boy, however, was the original sinner. He could not be saved.

The boy would die.

The boy died.

He was standing beside her.

The bullet ripping through his stomach.

It tore through her as much as it did him.

And it had torn every moment of every day in the darkness of a dirty room. 

"Shinji…"

Somehow, she felt relief as the vibration went up her throat and out her lips.

But he had heard her.

She knew this went the door made an ominous crash into the opposite wall and the silhouette of David stood in the door.

"Did you say something Red-Trash?!"

She stared at him for a moment as he stood fuming at her. She covered her mouth with her hand. She felt the smile creased up into her dirty face. Her shoulders began to jump like puckish sprites in the wood. She could not hold it back any longer.

She laughed.

She laughed as if she had never done it before. Her eyes watered and she held her stomach to her. She looked at David as he was both furious and confused at her madness.

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want."

She giggled softly into her palm.

"He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters."

She heard the footsteps draw quickly a dance across the floor. Her words quickened as her heart sped across her chest.

"He restores my soul! He guides me to paths of righteousness for His name's sake!"

She shrieked before she felt the hand across her jaw.

She hit the floor hard.

"Even though I walk…"

A kick cast itself on her ribcage. She gasped aloud.

"Even though I walk through the valley of death…"

She felt them splinter this time, and her cry called out against the walls.

"I fear no evil!"

She cried out again as the hands grabbed her ears and tossed her to the floor. Her cheekbones hit first, splitting the flesh against bone. The red rushed down her face as if she'd been crying tears of blood for a century. He pulled her up and threw her against the wall, and she felt her back bruise.

Then it didn't even hurt anymore.

It was as if no one was even touching her.

Then no one was.

She heard the voices, rushed, as if they were echoing a thousand miles away. They weren't normal voices from here. They were unfamiliar in all their vague sounds. She barely felt David's rough hands being pulled from her skull, where he had been bashing it against the stained wall. 

She watched with no emotion as the men argued and tried to capture him with binds. 

He didn't like this.

A roll of quick thunder came.

David's head exploded and his blood stained the wall beside hers.

She felt herself slide down the wall to the floor. She closed her eyes. She felt soft-handed arms on her shoulders. She opened them again. In front of her was not a face from this place. The brown irises brimmed with sympathy and care. She remembered these eyes.

"Misato…" she said with a hint of smile crossing her face.

Then she closed her eyes again.

That took a lot longer than I thought it would… oh well! It was done, so you can't really argue with progress. Oh, and the story isn't over with, it's only just begun!

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NEXT CHAPTER PREVIEW: After being rescued, Asuka is brought home. She is relieved to be away from her prison, but she finds even more torment in Tokyo-3 when she discovers she has been replaced by another pilot, and the discovery of ghosts she can't confront isn't a comforting thought either.

More soon!


	4. Sifting Salt Through Sand

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The world stands twisting in front of me

I was blind, but still I cannot see

All this destruction with the slice of one thin blade

All the silence in the eyes of this sweet babe 

****

Blooded Butterfly Wings

Part 4

Sifting Salt Through Sand

It had to have been a dream.

There had been too much hope in Hell. Hope melts like snow after so long. It can no longer endure the questions pressed upon it by the tiny voice of reason buried in a heart's shallow grave. It gives in to the plagues of reality.

Asuka squeezed her eyes and didn't open them. Gradually, all the senses in her skin were roused and aware. She could feel the stiff bandages covering her face and forehead. They wrapped around her ribs, and a heavy cast was on her old broken arm. She felt the itch of the IV in her opposite arm. 

She pulled it out and sat up in the bed. The sheets were cool against her skin. 

The room didn't smell of mold.

Or mildew.

Or dirt.

Or blood.

It smelled of all things clean, and enough to choke her on its sterility. Her ribs cried out as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and plopped her bare feet onto the floor.

She still didn't open her eyes.

Her hands found the wall and she supported herself against it as she sat down. Slowly, she let her lids open to the room.

Asuka curled in the corner of the room. The linoleum was cool against her thighs. None of the lights were lit up or glowing. Her chin rested on her knees as they were pulled to her chest, and she held them there with her hands. 

She stared at the window.

Through the blinds, slivers of sun shone through. She could hear the birds through the window, a thing she had wanted with all her soul since her capture, so why did it scare her until her torso hurt with the abuse of a beating heart?

He was standing to her side. He wasn't doing much, just watching her. His mouth stuttered and words came in fractions and scattered pieces across the air. He tried to catch her attention with his mouth as well as his hands. His fingers moved out to touch her, then retracted back to the palm with his expression.

But Asuka refused. 

What was the point in talking to ghosts?

She knew he had died that day. She'd seen him die.

She wondered where her dress was, and if they'd washed away the stains of grease and red to try to bring out the old color.

Why was she trying to forget his name now?

It had been her only thing to cling to from the original world when in the hands of the "radical God-ridden bastards," as Misato called them, and now that she had returned to this place, she wished to cleanse herself of it.

The bed next to hers was occupied. 

She saw the blue hair outlined and laced with bandages, not unlike her own head. A steady breath came and went inside the girl's chest. Asuka saw the bruises on the ivory skin, the ones that fell in a distinct pattern of five along her neck. She felt shame. Her ribs tightened their grip on the pulse and blood in her chest.

She was far worse than Rei now.

She was now a doll herself, but one possessed. The china hands would turn on mere children and break your bones with cold hands that let go of nothing when you cut them. Your soul could seep away into those painted eyes as she killed you behind satin, frills and fake curls.

He sat down finally, and kept his azure eyes on her form. 

She could ignore the stares of spirits though.

Why was he here?

Was he going to haunt her in every moment? Appear in the reflection of steamed mirrors like ghosts always do? Watch her wither and wilt as she grew into the ripe peel of an old woman, while he stood behind her, stuttering in transparent youth? Was this how it was to be?

"He won't leave me."

Her words were mumbles against the white walls, but a fracture to the silence of this morning. 

The ghost's face became confused.

"I kept him here."

Asuka let her forehead rest on her knees.

The door opened. A new person to greet her. She looked up at them from her corner.

A man. Brown hair. Stubble crisscrossing his chin.

The real Kaji.

His face was not like the memories that were bubbling up. It was strange, how she remembered things vaguely before and was now reminded and ceased to forget. His face was solemn as he looked at her. He cast a glance at the other. He looked at the ghost.

So he sees him too?

He lay something across the sheets she had rested on, something he had carried in with him.

The dress.

She didn't move from the corner. She resumed to stare at the blinds that filtered in slats of sun.

Kaji left without saying a word.

She heard the footsteps fade against the inside walls.

She attacked the dress. She pulled it close to her face. She could smell the fresh detergent on the surface. Her heart skipped and fingers traced their way to familiar seams. She looked franticly for them. She laughed when the red had faded to orange with the simple washing.

"He's still here," she said, pressing the fabric to her cheek. She could smell it still embedded in the dress. Somehow, relief came with that.

The ghost was still in the chair, staring at her with a puzzled face. It was one he had worn often and well when the heart still danced. He was a transparent doll. They were all dolls now. They had been stripped and painted, to be placed along shelves with numbers instead of names. The First, the Second, the Third. She would be in the middle of them both, staring ahead, ready to be played in this diabolical dollhouse NERV had created. This house wouldn't be pink, like all the other dollhouses. 

What was an appropriate color?

He was a shadow, sitting there. He was not the original boy she had known. He was a shadow of that boy, a cast image to reflect and mimic.

Without light there is no shadow.

Asuka walked over to the window. She adjusted the blinds. They fell flat against the glass.

Darkness flooded in the room.

What was an appropriate color?

Black.

A rational choice, especially since it was the only color now.

Oh, fun stuff here. 

****

Song Listened to While Writing This: Deftones – Change (In The House of Flies)

More soon!


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